


Not A Chance - Original

by rayhne



Series: The Other Lives of Sam Winchester [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abusive John Winchester, Alternate Universe - Human, Extremely Dubious Consent, Hurt Sam Winchester, John Winchester Being an Asshole, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Not Beta Read, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-22 22:59:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4853834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rayhne/pseuds/rayhne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On Nov. 2, 1983, Mary Winchester died defending her infant son Sam during a riot. Her grief-stricken husband, Dr. John Winchester, took the family on the road, vowing that no one would ever die in an underserved area because of lack of medical care again. He raised his sons to be field doctors as well, but when Sam didn't toe the line he was disowned.</p><p>31 years later, Dean is Boston's top trauma surgeon. An FBI agent is fished out of Boston Harbor with a bullet in his shoulder. When the blood and harbor grunge are cleared away, Dean recognizes his patient: the prodigal son, Sam. </p><p>This is a re-visioning of Safiyabat's story, Take Me back, done with her permission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In the beginning ...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Safiyabat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Safiyabat/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Take Me Back](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4241112) by [Safiyabat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Safiyabat/pseuds/Safiyabat). 



... there was a story. It was written by [Safiyabat](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Safiyabat/pseuds/Safiyabat) (one of two authors I subscribe to). The story was called [Take Me Back](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4241112/chapters/9595779) and while I enjoyed the story, there were some aspects of it I really didn't like. I made mention of this in various comments and commented on the possibility of writing my own version.

And I got called on it.

After some hemming and hawing, I sat down to write the damn thing. I wasn't happy with my first version. I kept looking at it and thinking this isn't the way I write so I tore it up and rewrote it.

Much better. It actually read like something I'd write. But before you move onto the story I have some things I'd like to say. Let's begin with, if you're a Dean fan, especially a 'Dean-Can-Do-No-Wrong' fan then it is very doubtful you will like this story. If you read it anyway and want to post a comment (and this applies to everyone) please keep the content of your comments centered on this story and not about things that may or may not have happened in the TV series. This story is an alternate universe version of a piece of fan fiction that is itself an alternate universe version of the TV series. Canon does not apply here and I will not allow comments to get off-topic (the topic being this fanfic).

I have posted the first three parts to the story. Large chunks of it have been lifted from Safiyabat's story; something I did tell her I was going to do. The first chapter is mostly hers with some changes. The next two chapters have chunks of her story intermixed with original writing. If I continue the story, more and more of it will be all mine because, well, it's going in a totally different direction then hers did (the title should be a major clue).

This story was written with Safiyabat's permission. As long as she has no objection to what I've done with it, it will remain up. If she does object, I will remove it.

*WARNING: This fic discusses the long-term effects of an incestuous relationship that starts out with non consent and continues as extremely dubious consent.* This fic is NSFB.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On Nov. 2, 1983, Mary Winchester died defending her infant son Sam during a riot. Her grief-stricken husband, Dr. John Winchester, took the family on the road, vowing that no one would ever die in an underserved area because of lack of medical care again. He raised his sons to be field doctors as well, but when Sam didn't toe the line he was disowned.
> 
> Thirty-one years later, Dean is Boston's top trauma surgeon. An FBI agent is fished out of Boston Harbor with a bullet in his shoulder. When the blood and harbor grunge are cleared away, Dean recognizes his patient: the prodigal son, Sam. 
> 
> This is a re-visioning of Safiyabat's story, Take Me back, done with her permission.

Dean picked up his office phone. He recognized the number easily. "Hey, Ben! How you doing, sport?" he greeted warmly. "Getting ready for bed?"

"Yeah, Dad. Since Mom and Matt have such an early bedtime at their house," he sighed. "It’s not fair! When I stay with you I get to stay up as late as I want."

"Now, that’s not entirely true, is it?" he challenged back. "You’re in bed by ten, eleven at the latest. Unless the Sox game goes into overtime. And why do you think that is?"

"Because you’re awesome and you love me more than they do?" God, the tone in his voice might have stretched back twenty-four years, so spot-on was it for Sammy at eight. But it wasn’t good to think like that, it wasn’t right to think like that. Couldn’t think about Sammy at all, not anymore. Not in thirteen years anyway. And sure, no other man would love his son as much as Dean did. "Matt doesn’t even come close to loving you as much as I do, kiddo," he promised, "but he does love you very much and he is right about giving you an early bedtime. A growing boy needs sleep if he’s going to get nice and big and strong and smart. Now, you’re with them during the week, when you have to get up early for school. That means that you need to go to bed early to make sure you stay healthy. If you were living with me during the week you’d have the same problem, buddy."

"But Parker’s parents let him stay up as late as he wants! He doesn’t have a bedtime!" Ben wailed. "It’s not fair!"

Dean snorted. He’d met Parker’s parents, and was reminded of an old saying of his father’s: "Money can’t buy brains." "Yeah, well, how many times has Parker gotten sent down to the principal’s office so far this year?"

Ben thought about it. "Five."

"And how long has the semester been going?"

"Uuh, five weeks."

"So, how do you think that whole ‘no bedtimes’ thing is working for him?"

Ben sulked for a moment. "Dad, I miss you."

"I miss you too, kiddo. But you know what? We’re going to be together this weekend and we’re going to go pick some apples, we’re going to bake some apple pie, buy some cider donuts, it’s going to be awesome." He smiled just thinking about it. Maybe someday Ben would get to be too old for apple picking, but he wasn’t there yet.

"Can we go to the place with the goats again?" his son demanded, all of his hurt and angst about bedtime forgotten. "I really like the one with the goats."

"You bet, buddy. They make the best cider donuts anyway." He chuckled.

"Do you ever stop thinking about food, Daddy?"

"Not if I can help it, little buddy. Why don’t you tell me what you did at school today?" He sat back while Ben filled him in on his day, describing the eternal war between the third-grade girls and the third grade boys and how Sadie wouldn’t let him use the computer until Miss Rawlins told her to.

Dean sat back and took it all in. This was all more than he’d ever thought he’d have, really. Oh, sure, Dad had insisted that his sons take on the mantle of the family business, become doctors in the name of saving people who were in danger of their lives or whatever. And it was right, he’d been right. But this? To be one of the top trauma surgeons in the region, in the country? A corner office, a department to himself? That was more than he could have asked for. It was more than Dad had ever dreamed of, more than Dad had expected of him or wanted for him if he was being honest with himself.

And maybe things hadn’t worked out with Lisa, but they’d parted on decent terms. They could still get together for the major holidays and for their son’s birthday, he’d stood up for her wedding to Matt only this past summer, they had a son. They had a beautiful, smart, wonderful son and they could afford to send him to private school, give him the absolute best that this city could offer.

When he sat back and looked at his life objectively, Dean Winchester was a very lucky man.

His son finished telling him a story about how he and Parker and a new kid named Maggie had routed some Year Fives in an exceptionally vicious game of dodgeball as a nurse stuck her head in. "Dr. Winchester?" Rachel interrupted, wincing when she saw him on the phone. "I’m sorry."

"Excuse me, Ben," he said into the phone, and muted the device. "What is it, Nurse?"

"We’ve got a couple of birds coming in," she told him quickly. The whole staff knew how much he hated to be disturbed during Ben Time. "Apparently something happened offshore. We’ve got an FBI agent with a bullet in his shoulder, he’s lost a lot of blood, and a suspect with flail chest and pneumothorax, apparently both of them went into the water."

He frowned at her. Technically they weren’t supposed to get data like "suspect" and "agent." They were supposed to treat all patients equally, regardless of anything that they’d done or had been trying to do. That kind of thinking would bring them dangerously close to playing God. Still, once the words were spoken they couldn’t be taken back. 

"Alright. Let me sign off with Ben and I’ll scrub in. Which residents are on call right now?"

"Samandriel, Ion, Inias and Welchert," she replied promptly. "Dr. Walker is also on duty tonight."

Dean nodded. No matter what happened, he could count on Walker to be cool and professional. "Have Walker deal with the flail chest and have Samandriel and Ion assist. I’ll take Inias and Welchert with me; we’ll work on the Fed. I’m assuming that we’ve got two ORs available?"

"We’ll have to bump a C-section, but it was scheduled so they’re willing to wait an extra few hours," Rachel confirmed.

"Awesome," Dean confirmed. "Give me five, alright?" She nodded and walked away, already barking out orders to her underlings. Dean turned back to the phone. "Sorry, buddy. We’ve got kind of an emergency here, and I need to go and operate."

Dean would never get over the mix of hero worship and disappointment in his son’s voice when he had to cut their calls short like that. "It’s okay, Daddy. You’re saving lives, right?"

"That’s right, sport." Had he sounded like that with their father? No, John Winchester would never allow for something that sounded so — so weak. Ben didn’t have responsibilities. He had a mother to take care of him, he had a stepfather. He distinctly did not have a brother to look after. No, he couldn’t let his mind go there, especially not before surgery. "I’ll tell you all about it this weekend, if I can. Okay?"

"Okay, daddy. I love you!"

"I love you too, Ben." Dean hung up the phone and stared at it for a moment. If his father could see him now, pining for his son. He could hear the old man’s voice now. Suck it up, boy! You don’t have time to be moping around about the boy – he’s eight years old, he’s old enough to get over it! People are dying; you don’t have time to coddle him!  
Some part of him glowered at his father’s ghost. Maybe he was pining over the time he was losing with his son. It was better than pining for the other person missing from his life, wasn’t it?

He shoved himself away from his desk, got up and went to go scrub in.

Scrubbing in was a process. Oh, he understood the necessity of it. He got how people had died by the truckload because doctors hadn’t washed their hands before moving from an infected war wound to a newly parturient patient. What they didn’t tell you about in med school, though, was the ritual of the scrubbing. Decontaminating the clothes, the hands, the skin. Covering the hair, the mouth, the nose, restricting the surgeon’s very breath from polluting the air with the toxins of the outside world. No matter what was going on in Dean’s life outside the four walls of the operating room, it all got washed away by the harshest antibacterial soap known to man or stoppered up by surgical-grade masks and hair covers. Only his eyes were really exposed, and thanks to all of the curtains and cloths covering the patient to help maintain focus and objectivity even those weren’t subject to contamination.

He washed up carefully, let the nurse help him on with the surgical gown. "What’ve we got?"

"Male, early thirties, gunshot wound to the left shoulder. The injury is through-and-through," explained Ellen, the orthopedist on duty. He could only see her eyes underneath the surgical mask and gown, but he’d know that Nebraska twang anywhere. "They’ve already got him down in x-ray, but the flight doc didn’t suspect any significant bone damage. Her biggest concern was the blood loss and soft tissue damage."

"Do we have any kind of blood work on our guy yet?" He angled his chest at the card reader and the OR door swung open.

"No, but we’ve got some blood replacers and some PNSS and PLR waiting for him. Poor guy’s bleeding like a stuck pig still," she pointed out. "They got it slowed but not stopped on the way here. It’s going to be messy, Dean."

"Good thing someone else does the laundry around here then." He wagged his eyebrows at her to show that he was joking and directed the residents to their places. Then they sat back to wait for the patient.

His x-rays arrived before he did, confirming the flight doctor’s initial diagnosis. "How did this guy manage to avoid bone involvement?" gasped Inias, pointing at the shadowy images indicating flesh. "I mean, that’s unreal!"

"He’s a lucky son of a bitch, that’s how," Dean retorted. "See those little solid bits there?" He indicated a few small particles near the wound. "Looks like the bullet shattered on impact. That means we’re going to need to do some serious cleaning out of this wound. I’m guessing that we’ve got arterial involvement as well as some ligament and tendon damage right around there – there’s no way the guy’s that lucky. Anything else we should know?"

"The patient was pulled out of the water," offered Rachel. "He jumped in after the other patient."

"Okay. So contamination might be a problem as well. Things to keep in mind." He heard the approach of a gurney and knew that show time was on its way. "Look alive, people."

The door to the OR flew open as the patient was brought in and set up for surgery. Dean and the team stayed out of the way for this part. The orderlies knew what they were doing and how to do it efficiently. They covered the patient’s body with cloths and hung curtains that obscured every part of him except for the left shoulder, the part Dean would be directly working on. He could see the anesthesiologist monitoring the man’s condition, but nothing of the man himself, and that was fine. It was best that way. A surgeon couldn’t go staring at his patients; he’d never get anything done. He had to be focused on the task at hand and only the task at hand.

Right now the task at hand was a shoulder with a blood-soaked bandage. A nurse Dean didn’t know stepped forward to carefully cut away the stopgap; as she disposed of the waste another stepped in to swab at the injury and the skin around it with iodine solution. Dean didn’t mind taking a moment to admire the shoulder; it was well defined under all the blood and crusted salt and — was that a tattoo? Well, part of one. The rest was hidden under the drapes. What he could see was brightly colored and looked fairly new. If he squinted he could see a couple moles here and there, half-hidden by the tattoo, not big ones but little dark spots that were actually pretty endearing.

Sammy had had moles.

The thought sprang to his mind, unbidden. It did that sometimes, no rhyme or reason to the memories. Sometimes he’d be working on a young kid, a skinny kid twelve or thirteen or something, and he’d remember Sammy. Or he’d drive through a college campus and he’d see some shaggy-haired beanpole standing there with his head and shoulders above the crowd. Other times his brother’s face would just seem to dance before him, when he was alone in his office or while he was by himself in the shower or just getting a rare moment in the sun between patients and rounds. He tried not to let it happen too often. He shouldn’t let it happen at all.

And he definitely shouldn’t let it happen at a time like this, when he had a patient on the table whose only commonality with Sam was gender and a few minor skin abnormalities. Sammy had been a broomstick with a wig on; this guy, judging by his shoulder, was built like a tank. He shouldn’t have any kind of ability to spark memories in Dean. The only thing this patient should inspire in Dean was focus. "Get the line in him," he directed Inias. "Can’t have him bleeding out while we work. Scalpel."

Someone handed Dean a scalpel. He made a small incision and peeled back the skin, enough to give him a view. "Suction," he directed, and an anonymous hand came along to vacuum out the blood and other junk – maybe seawater – that had collected in the joint. Dean held out a hand for a clamp to pinch off the artery; he’d need to close it up, but for now he needed to be able to see what he was working with.

"Welchert, in here. Start clearing out those bullet fragments, would you?" Dean indicated that the resident should come and stand by his side and start working. In the meantime, he got to work. The patient had in fact sustained some ligament damage, but he and Ellen could easily fix that between the two of them. It wouldn’t even take long. They’d done this often enough that they didn’t even need to talk about it anymore.

Once the ligaments had been stitched together Ellen stepped back. Inias stepped forward to help with the blood vessels. The artery wasn’t the only damaged vessel in the shoulder but it was the most important one. Again, their patient had lucked out; the bullet had only nicked the artery instead of severing it. Otherwise the man with the impressively developed shoulders would be dead instead of just in a sling and in a world of hurt for a while.

It took a while to close up all of the major vessel damage, but once that was done Welchert had gotten the debris out of the wound. They could close it up, stitch him p and send him on his merry way. Dean technically didn’t need to supervise the part with the stitches. Anyone could do stitches, a nurse practitioner could do stitches, they didn’t need a supervisor, but this was his surgery and his OR and if he was going to sign off on the process he was going to make sure it was all done right. They stitched up the incision first, and they stitched up the exit wound. Then they cleaned up the wound site again. "Might as well wash all that grime off of him while he’s unconscious," Inias shrugged, and Dean couldn’t argue with that. After all, the patient would have a hard time washing it himself; hopefully he had someone at home who could help. Wife? Husband?

None of your business, Winchester, he reminded himself firmly as he bent down to inspect the stitches.

That was when he saw the scar the tattoo very cleverly covered.

His first thought, upon seeing the scar, was, "Sammy had a scar like that." Sammy hadn’t just had a scar like that; Dean had put the scar there. They’d been horsing around, wrestling in the way that boys will, and Dean had put Sammy through one of those storm door windows. Their father had been pissed; they’d lost the deposit on the dump they were renting, and didn’t Sammy ever think about what that kind of horseplay cost them? And Sammy had just stood there, bleeding all over the place, into the carpet, wrecking his clothes, and nodded.

Dad hadn’t wanted to hear about how it had been an accident. And Sam hadn’t tried to tell him that it had been Dean’s fault, that Dean had pushed him. He’d just stood there and accepted their father’s ranting, taking one for the team.

Most of Sam’s cuts had been minor, not needing more than a little bit of gauze and some tape. This one, though – the shard had been large, and jagged, and it had gone right into Sammy’s shoulder like a knife. And it had twisted, too, enlarging the wound. Their father had refused to take them to the hospital wherever they’d been at the time. Dean couldn’t remember what Dad’s reasoning was, he was sure it made sense at the time, but instead he insisted that the boys patch themselves up. After all, they might as well get used to it; they were going to be doctors.

So Dean had done the stitches on the stab wound, pulling the glass shard out gently and sewing his little brother’s flesh back together like precious silk. Sammy hadn’t made a sound, either, but Dean could feel him under his hands, hot and so tense he was practically vibrating. Dean had leaned in once the wound was closed. "Kiss it better?" he offered with a smirk.

"Dr. Winchester?" Inias called, obviously not the first time he’d said it. "Are you okay?"

"Ye- yeah. I just – the patient reminded me of someone." How Dean found his own voice in that moment he had no idea; the words poured forth without the conscious intervention of his brain. "Not a big deal. Send him to recovery, then get him a room. He’ll need to stay a day or two at least, and then physiotherapy and the rest."

"Of course, Doctor." Welchert side-eyed him as he led the way out of the OR.

The orderlies returned. Dean didn’t stay to watch them tear down the anonymity of surgery. He walked back into the scrub room as fast as his dignity would allow, tearing off his mask and his gown and his gloves and rushing to the shower.

He scrubbed until his skin was pink, then red. It didn’t help. Even the usual ritual of re-dressing and heading back out into his office didn’t help. Ordinarily it cleansed the surgery from his mind, drew a sharp line between "OR Time" and the real world, but tonight it just left him feeling damp and chilled in addition to confused. He stumbled back to his office in a daze, oblivious to Rachel and Inias.

Once he was in the safety of his office he felt free to fall apart a little bit. Thirteen years was a long time. They’d been apart for thirteen years and not a word, not a note from the kid to even ask how he was doing, see how the family was. Instead he’d just come waltzing back into Dean’s life and demanded his care and attention like the past thirteen years hadn’t even happened –

Only he hadn’t really done that, had he? He’d come in unconscious, bleeding. Medflight wouldn’t have really given him a choice about where to go, they’d have just headed to the nearest trauma center. Sam probably didn’t even know where Dean was, didn’t know that they were in the same city. Why would he? It wasn’t like he gave a crap. And if he was FBI he might not even be assigned to Boston on a permanent basis. Maybe it was just coincidence. Maybe Sam wasn’t going to be around for very long. Maybe Dean could get away with letting this one slide, let one of the residents speak for him during rounds and just not have to deal with any of it.

After all, he had a life now. He had a job, a damn prestigious job. He had a career, damn it. He had a son, and while Lisa knew about him and Sammy she knew it as something in the past that would never, ever come up again. Sammy himself was in the past. If Sammy weren’t so much "in the past" anymore, would Lisa still let him see Ben? And Sammy, Sammy wouldn’t want to see him either. Sammy’d made that clear the night he walked out the door. He wasn’t going to be a doctor. He wasn’t going to live that life; he couldn’t live their father’s dreams for him. "But Sammy," Dean pled. "That means leaving me, too."

Sam had just looked at him with that remote expression and said nothing.

Dean snorted, feeling the old resentment coming back. Yeah, sure. It was great for Sam to sit there and cry his crocodile tears about living his life and all that, but he couldn’t seriously have expected Dean to just up and leave their father, leave Adam. If he didn’t know better, if he didn’t know that Dean was loyal to his family, well then that wasn’t on Dean.

No, Sammy wouldn’t be any happier to see Dean than Dean would be to see him. It was best if they just stayed apart.

Part of Dean, though, wanted something else. It had been thirteen years for crying out loud. Maybe, if he saw Sam and they talked and what-the-hell-ever, they’d work their crap out and he’d realize that everything that had ever happened between them had only happened because of their father, because of the life they led. Lonely and isolated, it was only natural that they would turn to each other for comfort. Things were different now. Maybe seeing each other would exorcise those ghosts, let them be normal brothers. Ben could have another uncle, like Adam only even taller. Dean wouldn’t be feeling an empty spot at the holiday table and he wouldn’t have that terrible cold feeling deep in his chest every second day in May. They were grown men, successful adults. They could move on from everything that had happened.

Dad had told Sam to stay away and never come back. Sam, for the first time in the history of ever, had followed orders. Dad was gone, though, killed by a warlord’s army in 2006. Why had Sammy stayed away for so long after that?

He documented the surgery for the hospital’s records and his own. He filled out more paperwork, evaluating the performance of the residents. He read up on new experimental procedures for reattaching severed limbs; it sounded like magic, but if it could help restore and rebuild lives then why not? He paid his bills.  
He checked records but saw no record for a Sam Winchester. For a moment he felt a surge of hope. Maybe he was wrong. He looked further, finally finding a record for Sam Pendragon, FBI, with the same birthday as his brother.

What the hell?

Sam Pendragon was out of recovery and had been moved to a room. He’d been given a private room, probably out of deference to his position as an FBI agent. He would just walk past. That was all. He wouldn’t go in, he wouldn’t bug Sammy, he wouldn’t even look at him. He would just check up. Like any other surgeon checking on any other patient. That was it.

This late at night, or maybe it was early in the morning, there wasn’t a lot of activity on the ward. Nurses checked on their patients and took their vitals, they did what was necessary, but for the most part the patients were asleep and the hallways were quiet. Sam’s room was at the end of the hall, the quietest part of the ward, which mostly made Dean happy. The guy needed rest most of all, and it wasn’t like he was in a lot of danger that he needed to be right in front of the nurse’s station. The light in his room, though, was on, and he didn’t like that much. "Excuse me," he asked the nurse at the station. "What’s up with the patient in room 4337? He having trouble staying asleep or what?"

The nurse, an older woman in maroon scrubs, chuckled softly. "No, Dr. Winchester. He’s out like a little light. Okay, a giant light but still. No, there’s an agent in there with him. I guess they didn’t want him to wake up alone or something." She beamed. "That’s sweet."

Dean frowned. "I’m pretty sure that’s against hospital policy." Agents in there with Sammy, huh? And what exactly was their relationship? Did Sammy have a girl on the side or something? A guy on the side, maybe? Dean had colleagues, he had friends, he had good friends, but they weren’t the kind of friend that kept up a bedside vigil.

"Dr. Winchester, it’s just like any other time a cop gets shot. They get protective, and I’m pretty sure we can understand that. The woman who’s in there now said she’s done this for him before, so I think that it’s something that must be protocol or something."

She, Dean thought, as jealousy stabbed through him. "Protocol. Okay. I’m just going to go peep in there."

"Suit yourself, but don’t go waking my patient," she shrugged.

Dean nodded. In the OR, he was in charge. On the ward, he’d never dream of crossing a nurse. Especially not one who had been there for a while. He crept down the hall, silent as the night itself, until he was at the door to Sammy’s room.

Sammy lay in the bed, still unconscious. Well, he’d lost a lot of blood and been through some serious trauma besides; he was allowed to sleep it off a bit. He’d been dressed in a hospital johnny, although where they found one that fit all that bulk was anyone’s guess. Sammy was stacked. His hair had gotten longer, too. Wasn’t the FBI supposed to be all about the buzz cuts and apple pie look? Asleep, and drugged to the gills, he still looked young and innocent.

Dean squirmed. Yeah, meeting up was definitely going to be a bad idea.

A woman looked up from the chair by Sam’s side sharply, as though alerted to a threat. Hell, her hand was on a gun. Grey eyes set in dark face narrowed. "Can I help you?" she asked coldly, her voice accented. Sounded like she was English.

He held his hands up to show that he had no ill intent. "I’m just checking on the patient, ma’am." He slowly held up his ID badge. "I’ll be leaving now."

"Yes. You do that." Her hand did not move from the hilt of that gun, and her eyes stayed glued to Dean as the surgeon backed away from the door.

Alrighty then. So Sammy had some kind of goon squad – a hot goon squad – looking out for him. That had been his job once, but that hadn’t been good enough for Sammy, had it? "I’m always gonna look out for you, Sammy. Don’t think you can get away from that."

He scurried back to his office and called Benny. Benny, he was good people. He would be willing to help a guy out here. "’Lo?" the Cajun muttered into his phone.

"Benny, it’s me." At the silence that greeted him, Dean sighed. "Dean. Benny, it’s Dean. I need a favor from you."

Benny’s answering groan brought a ghost of a grin to Dean’s face. "Brother, it is four o’clock in the morning. Do you have any idea what I was doing?"

"Burying your face in the pillow just now from the sound of it," Dean guessed. "Listen. This is big. It’s — I need you to help me out with my rounds tomorrow."

His friend sighed, probably pulling himself into a sitting position. "Dean, I’m a psychiatrist. I know exactly enough about surgery to keep those M. D. letters after my name. I ain’t qualified to be pokin’ and proddin’ at holes in people’s bodies less’n it’s for fun."

Ugh. "That is absolutely, positively the last thing on my mind right now, Benny. Look. There’s a patient, he showed up on my OR table last night."

"Well, they tend to do that, Dean. Seeing as how you’re a trauma surgeon and all that." Benny was awake now, even if he wasn’t exactly thrilled about it.

"Well, yeah. The thing is, I didn’t know the patient’s name or anything. That’s how I work."

"I know, Dean. We’ve talked about this."

"Well, I recognized the patient after the fact, from a mark on the part I was operating on. I should’ve probably recognized it beforehand, but it was covered in blood and a tattoo so I didn’t really see it — anyway, I should’ve recused myself from operating on the guy because of the personal connection. But I didn’t, because I didn’t know. So I’d like – I need – for a colleague I can trust to come along and help me explain to this poor guy why it was me cutting him open." There, that was enough to give him over the phone, wasn’t it?

Not that Benny was buying it. "Uh-huh. Sure, Winchester. So why not just have Ellen talk to the guy? I’m sure she was right there for the surgery too."

Dean sighed. "Yeah, no. You want a bone doc to be the gentle voice of reason? With a federal agent? Someone’s going to get shot."

"An’ it just might be Ellen doin’ the shootin,’" the psychiatrist had to admit. "Those Feds ain’t known for their sense of humor."

"And Ellen isn’t known for taking a lot of pushback," Dean grinned. "It’s why we love her."

Benny groaned. "Okay, brother. But I can promise you this. You’d better be outside that patient’s room at six fifty this morning. And you’re taking me out to dinner and you’re explaining every dirty detail about why you need someone else there to make sure you two play nice."

"Best steak dinner you’ve ever had," he promised.

Dean returned to the corridor outside Sam’s room at six forty-five, having drunk three urns’ worth of coffee and still not feeling any better. He waited about two doors away; he did not need to have Agent Trigger-Happy seeing him creeping around Sammy’s room again. Neither did he need for her to hear the conversation he was about to have with Benny. She just wouldn’t understand so much of what was going on, and he didn’t necessarily want the past to ricochet back on Sammy any more than he wanted it to come back on him. He straightened up when he saw his old friend coming down the hallway, drawing puzzled looks from the nurses. "Dr. Lafitte," he greeted in a normal tone. "I’m glad you could make it." He handed Benny the file on Sammy’s surgery.

Benny looked good for a guy whose sleep had been so interrupted. "Tell me what’s really going on, Dr. Winchester," he sighed in a quieter voice.

Dean sighed. He knew he wouldn’t be able to pull the wool over Benny’s eyes for long. "Okay. That patient from last night? The one I accidentally operated on?" Benny nodded, and Dean took a deep breath. "Right. He’s my brother."

Benny shook his head. "Dean, Adam’s not going to care that you operated on his damn shoulder. He’s going to be happy it was you and not some hack, okay?"

Dean cleared his throat and lowered his voice even more. "No. Not Adam. My, uh. My other brother."

Benny knew. Oh, did Benny ever know. He was one of the few entrusted with the secret, because he was a psychiatrist and he knew things. The whole theory about how it had probably happened because of the lifestyle had been his, after all. Dean knew that he’d made the connection when he saw his friend’s face turn several shades paler under the beard. "You’re joking."

"Dumb fucking luck, right? But, uh, I can’t go in there. I can’t go in there and tell him that out of all of the hospitals in goddamn New England they brought him to mine after a suspect shot him, and that I’m the one who —" He shook his head. "Just — I can’t do it, Benny."

"Dean," Benny objected. "Come on, brother. You can do this. You have to. You haven’t seen this guy in thirteen years, man. Don’t you think it’s time that you got some closure? That you both did? It’s going to be fine. I’ll be right here with you, nothing bad’s going to happen. You can face him, Dean."

"No. No, Benny, I can’t. I mean, I’m not sure I even want to, but I know I can’t. I mean if he wanted to see my face he’d have called before he got shot, you know? And — it’s just not right. We can’t be around each other. It’s not right for him and it’s not right for me. Just — please, brother. Do this one thing, it’s easy, explain the post-surgical care, it’s right there in my notes. I can’t even look at him, Benny. I just can’t."

Dean hadn’t realized that his voice was rising, but he didn’t care. He ran, like a coward, down to his car and drove back home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never really liked Meg and I really don't like her in the original story. I knew I couldn't do justice to writing her so I pulled an old character of mine from the abyss and brought her in. And she brought in others, which you will see in future chapters, if I continue to write this story. She's a kick and I hope folks like her.
> 
> There are minor changes throughout this chapter, some of which will have an impact later.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and friend overhear a conversation.

Sam had passed out after getting pulled from the water with the suspect, so he knew that if he survived he’d probably wake up in a hospital somewhere. When consciousness returned, therefore, with the accompanying marching band of heart monitors and oxygen machines and distant bells and whistles he didn’t panic. He just kept his eyes shut and waited for his body to process the grogginess. Only then did he open his eyes.

"Ugh," he muttered and he heard a low chuckle beside him. He cut his eyes that way to see the familiar figure of Sable sitting comfortably in the chair next to the bed, long legs stretched out in front of her.

"Morning, _col seisir ionúin_."

"What happened?" His eyes narrowed. "We got him?"

"You got him. Shot him then dragged him from the harbor — mostly. We dragged you both the rest of the way out. You were brought here. Best trauma surgeon in Boston, blah blah blah. Some hinky guy in white came skulking around in the night. I chased him off."

Sam grunted and fell silent so he could evaluate his injuries. His arm hurt and he could feel the stitches. He could have done a better job. He tried to move and scowled. He was going to need help getting dress.

"What about —" he started to ask then stop when he heard a familiar name outside the door. A name he hadn’t heard in years. It was distant, maybe a couple of doors down, but Sam had made a career out of eavesdropping and in several languages to boot. He could absolutely pick out the name "Dean" in a crowd.

Especially when someone else had called out for "Dr. Winchester" first.

Sable fell silent as well, eyes narrowing as they listened.

"No, not Adam. My, uh. My other brother." It had been thirteen years, but Sam knew that voice. How could he forget it? Maybe it was a little older, maybe it was a little deeper or harsher, but it was still his.

The other voice murmured something to Dean about closure, about "facing" Sam. As though Sam was the one who had done something wrong. "Nothing bad’s gonna happen to you," the Louisiana-accented voice assured his brother.

Sam grimaced. Thirteen years, no contact, Sam had been freaking shot and Dean didn’t even want to see him now. Because, to Dean, Sam had been the bad guy, and Dean couldn’t handle facing him. He glanced at Sable, making a face at her.

"I can’t even look at him, Benny," Dean was saying, in a thick, choked voice. Choked with fear, Sam realized. Fear of him. "I just can’t."

"Are you frakking kidding me?" Sable hissed.

Sam shrugged. "He always was a bit of a drama queen," he murmured. 

"Why isn’t he dead yet?" Even though they were alone and no one could possibly hear them, Sable switched to Japanese.

Sam’s lips twitched. "My fault."

Sable rolled her eyes. "Someone is going to be in deep shit when they find out about this."

Sam nodded. He hadn’t known Dean was in Boston and neither had anyone else. If they had he wouldn’t be in Boston. Maybe. He rather liked the city and it was big enough for both of them. And there were other reasons for him to be here.

Dean would just have to deal.

A man strode into the room, face red and eyes blazing. He probably stood about six feet tall, with brown hair and a beard and a white coat. For all his obvious discomfort – and the words Sam had overheard – he forced a pleasant smile onto his face. "You must be Sam Winchester. I’m Dr. Benjamin Lafitte. I’m a psychiatrist here at Boston General."

"Sam Pendragon." Sam corrected then frowned. "A psychiatrist." He exchanged a glance with Sable.

The other man blinked, obviously thrown off-balance. "Yes, sir. I specialize in –"

"Gunshot wounds?" Sable interrupted, raising an eyebrow. "Not sure that I see the logical progression from ‘Boston mobster shoots him in the chest’ to ‘send in the psychiatrists.’ I mean, I get that we’re both new in town but come on. SOP is SOP."

Lafitte stared at her for a moment. "And you are?"

Sable exchanged a quick look with Sam, wondering how to play it. She saw the answer in his eyes and smothered a smile. "Inspector Sable Horne, Interpol. I’m liaising with the FBI and partner to Agent Pendragon." 

"Well, partner or not I’m not sure that I should be discussing his surgery or his care with you."

Sam cleared his throat. "I’m fairly certain that under HIPAA, as the patient, I get to decide whether Inspector Horne is present for any discussion of my treatment." He let himself give a very thin smile, the "lawyer" smile that usually got suspects to give up without a fight. "Or are you planning to tell two law agents that you don’t believe that those rules apply to you?"

Lafitte blinked. "Mr. Winchester, you’ve been heavily medicated –"

"Pendragon. Special Agent Pendragon." Sable said curtly. "And check again. I had the nurses take him off the hard stuff after he was brought in here."

"I’m not a fan of substances that make me lose control of my own mind," Sam informed him dryly. Dean hadn’t just sent in a stranger, he’d sent in a goddamn shrink. A shrink, he realized, that was a colleague and friend of Dean’s. No way was this guy unbiased. "I'm choosing to allow Inspector Horne to be present. Do we need to reach out to your legal department?"

Now Sam was just being a dick; he knew it and he didn’t care in the least. The doctor flinched but he sighed. "Look, Sam — "

"Agent," Sable corrected sharply.

"Agent." Lafitte ground out. "Some things may come out in the course of this discussion that are private, that you may not want your co-workers involved with."

"What, you mean like the fact that Dean sent a psychiatrist in to do my surgical debrief because he couldn’t stand to look me in the eye?" Sam shot back, cool and calm.

The other man froze. "You heard all that, then."

"We’re professional eavesdroppers, Dr. Lafitte. Did Winchester not mention the whole FBI thing? Listening in on conversations other people don’t want us to hear — it’s kind of what we get paid to do," Sable smiled.

"Inspector Horne is a — a friend." Sam took pity on the doctor then. Dean had left him in a lurch, just kind of sent him in blind, and however Sam might feel about the situation none of it was Lafitte’s fault. "A very good friend. You can speak freely in front of her."

Lafitte sighed deeply. "Okay. Well. The first thing I’m going to freely say is that I ain’t qualified to tell you jack shit about recovering from surgery or about a gunshot wound. He called me up and asked me to come with him because he’d gotten jammed up on a surgery; said he didn’t know who the patient was until after the surgery when all the blood was cleared away. Then he saw a scar and he recognized ‘the patient’ from the scar. He should’ve recused himself from operating on you and he would have if he’d known."

Sam snorted. "No shit."

"Naw, it ain’t like that. A surgeon ain’t supposed to cut anyone he knows, anyone at all. It’s too much of an emotional bond, it messes with their heads." He waved a hand. "That much I do believe. I’ve known him for a while now, ever since he came to Boston General, and he does everything very properly and by the book. It wouldn’t be unusual for him to want an established physician to come and be a neutral party in a situation like this. That’s why I agreed. What I did not agree to – and what I’m sure as hell going to take out of his hide for later on – is getting sent in here to try to debrief you on a procedure I know nothing about. The legal department will have a field day about this; the man knows better."

"Hand me the report." Sam held out his hand.

"Excuse me?" Lafitte blinked.

"Winchester raised us all with the expectation that we’d be doctors, all of us. I didn’t exactly conform, but I can still read a surgical report well enough to figure out what was done, what needs to be done and what the possible complications are." He grimaced. "I’m very sorry that Dean dropped into the middle of his drama, Dr. Lafitte."

"Ah, now, Agent. I might not be very good at surgical reports but family drama’s kind of my bread and butter." He gave a slow smile as he passed over the report.

Sam scanned it quickly. The injury had been fairly straightforward; the tendon damage had been easily fixed and he should be able to start using the joint again in a couple of weeks. Well, the report said four weeks but Sam had no intention of waiting that long to get back to work. Possible complications included infection – seriously? Had he needed to write that down? "I’m afraid that his drama is a little more melodramatic than most people can stomach. This doesn’t include discharge instructions."

"Well, no." He took the report back. "You took a tumble into questionable waters, Agent. Infection is a very real concern; you really need to stay here at least another day so we can make sure you didn’t get any creepy-crawlies in there."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Sorry, but I’m not going to be doing that. If my surgeon can’t even come into my room to check the results of the operation the day after or send someone who knows what they're doing, then this is not a hospital I intend to stay at. I can keep the incision clean and watch for signs of infection at home; if I have any problems I’ll go to Mt. Auburn."

Lafitte sighed. "I can’t say as I blame you. I’m going to have to strongly advise against it, though." He grimaced. "I mean, would it really be so bad to see him again?"

"Obviously you don’t know the full story, Doctor." Sam said coldly. "Because if you did you wouldn’t have just said something so incredibly stupid."

"Not to mention that Agent Pendragon isn’t the one who sent an unqualified person in here to do his job while he ran and hid from his own actions." Sable pointed out.

Lafitte pressed his lips together. "Alright. Well, I still think it’s a bad idea to be off that IV antibiotic drip, and you lost a ton of blood."

"Which has been sufficiently replaced that I’m unlikely to drop dead," Sam retorted. "Please have someone get the AMA paperwork."

Lafitte looked like he wanted to say something but a look at Sable’s face had him running. He came back after just a moment with the appropriate paperwork. "I’d like for you to reconsider your decision, Agent," he said, handing over the paperwork.

Sam shook his head. "I can’t stay here. Not after hearing that."

"Agent Pendragon won’t be staying someplace that discriminates against him on the basis of his sexuality," Sable pointed out in a surprisingly sweet tone.

"Now wait just a minute," Lafitte objected, frowning. "This ain’t about –"

"Isn’t it? Maybe you should talk to Dr. Winchester about that. I know he’s perfectly familiar with Agent Pendragon’s stated sexuality, I know that he refused to treat Agent Pendragon properly as he would any other patient and I know exactly how our supervisor will see it when she kicks this up to our Civil Rights unit." She smiled a smile that made a man’s balls try to hide inside his body. From the look on Lafitte’s face, his were trying to do just that. "Endangering the life of a federal agent because of one doctor’s attitudes about what men ‘should’ do? That’s not going to create great press for Boston General, Dr. Lafitte."

Sam snickered, more amused then he should be. A part of him wanted to assure Lafitte that he wasn’t going to sue the hospital but Dean had been incredibly unprofessional. And, yes, he admitted to himself. It would feel good to make him sweat. There was a part of him that wanted to take it even further but the statute of limitations had long since run out on what had gone on between him and Dean. On the other hand, the bad publicity — oh, it was so tempting.

Lafitte paled. "Look, ma’am, I’m sure that won’t be necessary," he said. "I’m going to — I don’t know, talk to Dean. Damn it, this is the last time I do him a favor." He glowered at the door.

"Smart move." Sam was already signing papers. "He shouldn’t have put you in that position. I’m sorry he did."

"I think the term is drama queen." Sable said dryly.

"Hey, he's not like that!" Lafitte protested.

"Really?" Sam looked up. "Then why did he have his little meltdown right outside my door, knowing as he does that I have very acute hearing? Or do you think he just conveniently forgot that little fact? Nope, consciously or unconsciously, he meant for me to hear that." He signed the final form and offered them back to Lafitte. "It's an old trick of his. So he can pretend — I don't know what he wants to pretend. That he isn't responsible, I guess. Now, if you don't mind, I'll get dressed and be on my way."

The psychiatrist frowned as he took the paper. "Okay. Okay then. At least let me help get you dressed." He offered Sable a wry grin. "I have no doubt – no doubt at all – about your ability to take down drug dealers, Mafiosi and miscreants of every type, but I ain’t even sure that I can reach to help him on with his shirt, ma’am."

Sable stood up. Standing, she was as tall as Lafitte and just a few inches shorter then Sam. Very little of that height had to do with the shoes she wore. "I think I can manage just fine," she said cooly.

The doctor blinked. After a moment, he handed Sam a card and a copy of the discharge instructions, most of which said, "Don’t," and Sam was free to go. 

Once they were on the road, Sable driving in that get-the-hell-out-of-my-way-or-I’ll-drive-over-you manner she had, Sam pulled out his phone. 

Sable smirked. "Bet I know who you’re calling. Put it on speaker."

Sam smiled as he scrolled through his contacts and selected one. Briefly he wondered where the other man was but suspected he’d find out soon enough. He waited through several rings before there was finally an answer.

"This had better be good." 

"Depends on what you mean by good."

"Sam!" Crossness became open delight. "I’m delighted to hear from you! Even so it had better be good. You interrupted a perfectly good _menage a_ — what’s French for twelve?"

Sam rolled his eyes and told him.

"Yes, that. Haven’t heard from you in ages — "

"I saw you three weeks ago, Balthy."

"Don’t call me that. And now you’re calling out of the blue! So what’s up, darling?"

"Last time I saw you did I mention I had a new job?"

"Hmmm? I heard something about you getting out of that dreadful counterterrorism. I mean someone has to do it but that boss of yours! Did you take up Jim’s offer of Interpol?

"Oh no. Still with the FBI."

"How dreary."

"I just transferred to the Boston office."

Complete silence. And then — "Boston! How delightful!"

"Knock it off, Balthy. I know very well that you’re the keeper of Dean’s location."

"Oh dear. Please tell me you didn’t — "

"Long story short. He was my surgeon — " Sam hastily pulled the phone from his ear and Balthazar’s shriek threatened to shatter his eardrum.

"He what?"

"He didn’t realize it was me until the end."

"Why is he still alive? I mean seriously."

"Balthy."

"Simon is going to have a fit. And then he’s going to kill me!"

"No, he isn’t. I’m pretty sure I didn’t tell you where I was going."

"Yes, be sure and tell him that. Even so I’ll be taking an extended vacation to somewhere totally remote. No phones, no computers, no nothing. No clothing would be nice — wait a minute. What do you mean, he was your surgeon?"

Sam gave him a brief rundown of the recent events. 

"Oh dear. I really must check the dispatches more often. That’s a mess. What are you going to do?"

"Well, first he is going to sue." Sable spoke up. "Or the agency will on his behalf."

"Sable, darling. So good to hear your voice."

"I really hate to do that." Sam protested. "Then again if he’d acted like a professional and had a surgeon come in there wouldn’t have been a problem. He acted like a jerk; he deserves a smack."

"And then we’ll make sure that Sam won’t get send to that hospital." Sable continued.

"Well, he can start by not getting shot again." The other man said.

"I’ll do my best. Look, I just wanted to warn you. You know, in case someone goes on the warpath."

"Thank you. If I’m still alive in a month I’ll swing by. Keep a bed open for me!"

"Like not having an empty bed is going to stop you."

"True. True. Fare thee well."

That call done, Sam relaxed back in the seat, closing his eyes and dozing lightly while Sable drove. He was aware of Sable making a couple calls and half-listened to her side of the conversation. 

"Jody’s up in arms." Sable said as she put her phone away. "She wants to arrest your brother."

Sam didn’t even open his eyes. "On what charge?"

"General fuckery in the first degree. Also assault on a federal officer, since this whole sending in a fucking psychiatrist to do the post-surgery exam is malpractice and highly inappropriate. Of course, so is molesting your little brother so I’m not so sure that his moral compass is exactly aligned properly."

Sam made a face in her direction.

"We’re not going to let anything happen to you. You know that, right? We’ve got your back."

Sam cracked an eye open and smiled fondly at her. "I know that."

****************************************************

Dean should have known better than to think that running would get him anywhere, and if he were being honest with himself he’d admit that he never really thought that it would. He’d just wanted to get away, but it hadn’t lasted long. He’d gotten as far as his house before his phone rang, with Benny filling his ears with profanity. "I thought that woman was gonna eat me, Winchester! And I don’t mean in the fun sexy way!" his old friend had exploded. "Also she’s talking lawsuit and she’s right!"

Dean had to laugh at that one, because there was no way in hell that Sam was taking it to that level. A lawsuit? Really?

So he’d crashed and let oblivion welcome him. A few short hours later, though, he got a call from Bobby Singer, Chief Medical Officer for the whole hospital. He was Dean’s boss, and he was one of the few people who Dean’s phone was set to allow calls from even when the "Do Not Disturb" was on. "Hello?" he groaned into the phone.

"You’re in a heap of trouble, Winchester." Bobby’s tone wasn’t angry, per se. It wasn’t friendly either. "I just got a call from Supervisory Special Agent Jody Mills. She’s in charge of the Boston field office for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and I’ve known her for a good while, Dean."

Fuck. "Yes, sir."

"It seems she’s got her dander up about one of her agents being denied basic post-surgical care – I believe her exact words were ‘treated worse than a criminal who went on a multi-state kidnap and kill spree’ – due to ‘one of your surgeon’s bias regarding said agent’s sexuality.’ She was good and angry, son."

Fuck fuck fuck. "Sir, it wasn’t like that."

"I sure as hell hope that it wasn’t. Nevertheless, that’s a formal complaint she made."

The implications hit Dean like a boot to the chest. "You’re joking."

"Nope. It’s already been kicked to the legal department."

"Oh, for crying out loud, Bobby, you know I’m not like that. I don’t care what someone does with his — I’m not like that." He pulled the other pillow over his face.

"Then explain to me why you and I are going to a meeting with the head of Legal tomorrow morning at eight AM sharp."

Dean sighed. "I didn’t know it was my brother until I saw the scar, after the blood was cleared away, okay? We’ve been estranged for over ten years. I panicked, I freaked out. Yes, I should have had Ellen do the post-op meeting. I didn’t do that, I was too — I was distraught. This is why we don’t have surgeons operate on family members, or people they know." He sighed. "I thought that Benny might — I mean, Benny knows more of my history with Sammy. I figured he’d be someone who might be able to talk to him better. I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking, I was panicking."

"Well, your little bout of fraternal angst is going to wind up costing the hospital big. Hopefully he’ll be willing to settle out of court and keep this out of the papers." Singer sighed. "Damn it, Dean. It’s a good thing you’re such a fine surgeon."

"I’ve never given the hospital any trouble before this, Bobby. You know I haven’t." He sat up. This absolutely could not be happening. Sammy had at least as much to lose from this as he did, at least as much.

"I know. I know you haven’t, son. This kind of thing, though, it’s big. Especially around here, right now. You get that, right?"

"Absolutely, sir."

"Your brother has it in his power to absolutely destroy your career, Dean." Bobby mentioned after a moment. "Why would he want to do that to you?"

"I don’t know, Bobby," Dean sighed. "I mean, he shouldn’t even know that I was the surgeon, but if he found out it was me maybe?"

"What, you saved his arm and that’s grounds for a lawsuit?" The older doctor snorted. "My family was screwed up but that’s one screwed-up brother."

"Yeah, well, that’s Sammy to a T," Dean told him, not even bothering to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "Dad, uh, you know what he wanted for us. All three of us."  
"He wanted you to be doctors."

"Well, yeah. But not just doctors." He rubbed the bridge of his nose and tried to stave off the impending headache. "He wanted us to be his kind of doctor. Out there in the field like him, saving people the way he did. Field doctors, I guess. Sammy always hated that kind of life, hated moving around, hated the whole idea. He and Dad never stopped butting heads. Tell you the truth, I used to kind of worry about leaving them together when I left for college. Used to think I’d come home and maybe one of ‘em would be dead, and I wasn’t sure which one it would be. Dad got him into the pre-med program at Austin. Sammy — Sammy just up and left. Walked out on everything."

It wasn’t the whole story, not by a long shot, and Bobby seemed to get that. "Okay. And?"

"And Dad kicked him out. If he wasn’t going to be part of the family, the family business, the family mission, then he didn’t get to be part of the rest of the family either." Dean closed his eyes.

"Did you try to stop your father?" Bobby pressed.

"What? No! I mean, that was Dad’s whole — his whole thing. His whole reason for living, after Mom died. And she died protecting Sam, and there was Sam just — just crapping all over it. Crapping all over her. No, I didn’t try to stop Dad. His decision was final and he was right." He could still hear the sound of Sammy’s feet walking away, echoing on the concrete with the one duffel slung over his back. "I couldn’t have gone against him even if I’d wanted to. It was Dad."

Bobby sighed. "And did you know about your brother’s alternative lifestyle?"

Dean grimaced.

_Dean, I think I like boys. I mean, I like girls too. But I’m pretty sure I like boys._

_Are you sure, Sammy? The kid had been all of eleven, maybe._

_He’d nodded, miserably. Dean had just chuckled lowly. How do you know? Have you ever kissed a girl? Sammy had shaken his head – no, he hadn’t. Well, why don’t we try this? I’ll kiss you – I’m a boy, right? I’ll kiss you, and you tell me if you like it. That way you’ll know._

_Sammy had given him a dubious look, hair too long even then. Dean, come on. We’re brothers._

_Exactly, Sammy. That’s why it doesn’t count for anything. We’re brothers, I’m just helping you out. Helping you figure out what you want. It’s normal._

"Yeah, Bobby," he admitted. "I knew. I knew since he was about eleven."

"Alright." He’d never heard his mentor sound so incredibly old. "Well, hopefully someone will talk some sense into him and he’ll be willing to settle out of court. I don’t care how messed up a guy is; no one wants their brother’s career destroyed like that. I’m sure it wouldn’t do his any favors either, you know?"

"Right." He swallowed. "What time are we meeting with Naomi?"

"Eight. You be there, Dean. And you be contrite."

Dean was there, and he was contrite. Fortunately the hospital really never had known a day’s worth of trouble from him, so the lawyers were willing to take his word that there wouldn’t be any further problems of a homophobic variety. "We really feel," Bobby told him gently, "that it would be for the best if you made some overtures toward Agent Pendragon."

Dean almost choked on his water. "Excuse me?"

The head of the legal department was Naomi Tapping. She terrified Dean. Maybe it was the way she never lost that artificial half-smile, kind of like a Barbie doll. "We believe that part of the reason for his resentment is the extremely rude treatment he received after the discovery that you had treated your brother. Perhaps if you make an attempt to treat him like a patient he’ll be more likely to accept a settlement and not pursue litigation."

Damn it. Dean knew that he’d freaked, he knew that part was wrong, but he wasn’t the bad guy here. "Alright. I’ll see what I can do. But I’m telling you, Sammy’ll do what Sammy wants to do. Nothing I’ve said or done has ever changed his mind."

He went back to his office, not really feeling up to going back to his empty house right now, and reached out to Benny. Benny was still angry, but agreed to being treated to the "nicest steak dinner you’ve ever seen, Winchester. You freaking owe me that much."

Dean did owe him that much. He dropped off a bottle of the best whiskey he had in his collection besides.

He had Ben that weekend. It was nice to lose himself in being a dad for a few days. As promised, they went apple picking. They baked pies, and cobblers and strudels and a brown betty. They played catch. They watched the entire Indiana Jones trilogy. Ben wanted to watch Star Wars but Dean couldn’t do that quite yet. Maybe when he’d adjusted to the sudden reappearance of Sam in his life, or maybe when Sam went back to wherever he lived full-time.

On Monday he dropped Ben off at the British International School and made his way to work, settling in early to start on the process of "making overtures" to the brother who had abandoned him. He could do this. He talked to Benny first.

Benny confirmed that Sam and his "partner" – whatever that meant – Sable had overheard their conversation. Well that was just great; it meant that Dean wouldn’t be able to lie his way out of this, no matter what. Still, he could be professional. Right? Especially if it was temporary. Sam was only in town for a little while, for a short period of time. Dean had gotten very attached to the idea that Sam’s residence in Boston was temporary, only related to the case.

Benny wasn’t so sure. "Hospital records show an actual address outside of the city," he pointed out. "Like a real house address."

Dean waved a hand. "I’m sure it’s a corporate apartment, or temporary housing for agents on long-term assignment or something. There’s no way he’d move to the same city where I live."

"Mmm-hmm. And in all these years did you ever think to check up on your little brother, brother?" Benny sat back and rested his hand in his chin.

"Well, no. But that’s me. It wasn’t on me to check up on him. I wasn’t disowned." He beamed.

Benny blinked. "I should record you, so that you can go back and listen to yourself like two days later."

"I’m telling you, Benny. I mean, I’m the head of trauma."

"And I can see why! You traumatized me, you traumatized him, I’m pretty sure you traumatized that inspector lady –"

"No one’s traumatizing her, Benny. That woman sprinkles trauma on other people’s corn flakes." And what, exactly, was she doing with Sam?

"Okay," Benny admitted after half a second. "You have a point there. She sure as hell sprinkled some on mine, which is totally your fault by the way. But that’s not the point. The point is that there’s no reason to think that Sam would have checked up on your whereabouts after you cast him out anymore than you checked on his after you cast him out, you hear me?"

"Hey, I didn’t cast him out. Dad cast him out."

Benny made him sit in silence for a good two minutes to appreciate the absurdity of that statement. Then he spoke. "Try not to bring that up when you speak to him. Try and stay professional, would you?"

Dean sighed and dialed the phone. After three rings it was picked up.

"Sterling residence." A woman’s voice, deep and accented and not the woman who’d been sitting with Sam.

Dean blinked, pulling the phone away to look at it briefly and wondering if he’d dialed the right number. "Ahhh, yes. I’m calling for Sam Winchester."

"I’m sorry." The woman said, her voice considerably cooler. "There is no Winchester here."

"Wait! I — I mean —" What was that stupid name? "Pendragon. Sam Pendragon."

"He is not here at the moment. Would you care to leave a message?" There was something in her voice that suggested he’d never get the message.

"Well, where the hell is he? He’s not back at work, is he?" Dean’s voice rose. How stupid could he be?

"I’m afraid I can’t give you that information. Good day." There was a click as she hung up the phone.

Dean glared at the phone. "Moron. I bet that’s where he is."

"He’s your brother," the psychiatrist pointed out, rifling through Dean’s inbox.

"Like that means anything," Dean muttered, looking through the hospital records. "Let’s see. We’ve got a cell phone. Should we try that?"

"Let your fingers do the walking, brother," Benny urged.

Dean dialed the cell phone. This time someone did pick up, and it was a male. "Agent Pendragon," the gruff, tense voice greeted. Well of course his voice is tense, jackass, he told himself. He’s got a gunshot wound to the arm. Still, it didn’t sound like Sam. It was deep, and it was rough, and it carried a hell of a lot more than thirteen years with it. And what was with that stupid name anyway?

"Agent Pendragon," Dean greeted, clearing his throat. "I’m calling from Boston General Hospital. We’d like for you to come in for a post-surgical evaluation and talk to a physical therapist –"

"Is this some kind of sick joke?" Sam’s voice was cold with rage. "What the actual ever loving fuck? I can’t even get a surgeon to look at the injury but you think I’m going to brave Boston traffic for the privilege of having a therapist at your hospital poke at me? Good luck, Dean." The phone went dead.

Dean looked at Benny. Benny looked at Dean. "Well. That went well," the surgeon declared.

Sammy hated him. Sammy hated him. He could live with it when Sam just wanted to get away from Dad and Dad’s strictures — he’d resented it, he’d hated it, it had destroyed him, but he could live with it. He could live with it because it hadn’t been personal. It had been Dean not being enough to keep Sammy around. This was different. This was Sammy hating Dean personally, and the thought was like poison in his veins.

He tried again, having the actual scheduling department call his brother. The result was the same, with fewer profanities. He asked Benny to call. Benny firmly declined to get in between any more Winchester family drama, "’specially not when your brother’s built like that. Or has that bodyguard with him, brother. I ain’t getting anywhere closer to that hot mess than this chair right here."

Benny was probably a smart man.

Bringing up the 'bodyguard', the beautiful woman with the gun, got Dean thinking, though. Maybe going the "professional" route wasn’t the right way to play this. He tried calling Sam’s cell phone, but he didn’t get very far. Sam answered the phone. "Hello?"

"Sammy, listen –"

"Dean." That flat tone that Dean hated so much was back, and that was as much as Dean got to hear of his little brother’s voice.

A new voice took over, or rather a different voice. Dean had heard this one before; it was the 'bodyguard'. "This is Inspector Sable Horne, is this Dr. Dean Winchester?"

"Yes, why are you on my brother’s phone?" He blinked at the naked hostility in the woman’s tone.

"Because you’re harassing my partner, dumbass," she retorted. "You need to cease and desist. Stop calling him. Stop having your people call him. Stop contacting him. Leave him alone. He didn’t come to Boston looking for you, looking to ‘reconnect’ or any crap like that. You made your wants abundantly clear –"

"Oh, did I?" Dean erupted.

"Yes, you did, when you denied him the most routine level of care that would be offered to the worst kind of felon. Leave him alone, Dr. Winchester, or we’ll be forced to press charges."

Boy, Benny hadn’t been kidding when he’d called this woman a bodyguard. "Don’t you think it’s up to Sammy to decide?"

"That’s Special Agent Pendragon to you, numb nuts," she snapped. "Remember that." The phone went dead.

Dean growled at his handset. "Fuck this," he said to the room in general, and drove down to the Federal Building.

The drive should have been enough to clear his head, but downtown Boston traffic isn’t conducive to calming of anyone’s temper and neither is looking for parking near the Federal Building. He presented himself at the field office reception desk using his full height and bulk. "Doctor Dean Winchester, here to see Special Agent Sam Win — Pendragon."

The receptionist wasn’t impressed or intimidated. "Do you have an appointment, Dr. Dean Winchester?" she asked him, spitting out his name in the same tone with which he’d spat out his brother’s full name and title.

"No, but I believe he’s expecting me."

"Have a seat. I’ll announce you."

Dean waited. He waited for five minutes. He shifted seats and he waited for another five minutes. Finally someone came out, but it wasn’t Sammy. The smartly dressed agent was a few years older than he was, with short brown hair and an expression on her face that made Dean feel like he’d been caught stealing cookies. "I’m Supervisory Special Agent Jody Mills," she greeted. She didn’t hold out a hand to shake. "I manage the Boston office and I’m Agent Pendragon’s immediate supervisor."

Dean blinked. "Wait – Sammy’s in the Boston office now?"

Her eyes narrowed but she nodded. "He transferred here a few months ago. We’re very fortunate to have him – he’s a valuable agent. He’s fucking brilliant, he speaks twelve languages fluently, six more passably. He’s incredible in a fight and there’s not a better shot on the East Coast." Her smile was more than a little smug. "More than a few agencies had their eyes on him, but we’re the ones who got him. I’d say you should be proud, but we know that’s not something that happens in the Winchester family."

Dean crossed his arms over his chest. "Now listen here, lady –"

"No. You listen here. You were told to stop calling, you were informed that your advances were unwelcome, so you drove down here to do what? Force yourself on him?" She stepped into his space. "No. Not here, not in my office, not to one of my agents. I get that ‘choice’ was never a big part of Sam’s life growing up but it is now, and after you refused him medical treatment I think he’s right to choose to exclude you now."

"Okay," Dean told her, breathing out slowly in an effort to rein in his temper. "You don’t know what you’re talking about, but okay. Even if all that is true you can’t have a guy in his condition back at work already. He was just shot!"

"It’s not the first time for him, and knowing him it won’t be the last." She offered a wry grin. "We’ve found him a private physician who has taken over his care; his mental health wouldn’t be helped by staring at the ceiling for weeks."

"No no no no no," Dean shook his head. "Let him go walk the Freedom Trail or explore the State House or something. Let him go take in a show or watch Netflix, but he can’t be out here running around working full days. His arm will fall off."

"You don’t get a say, Dr. Winchester. You couldn’t be bothered to care for him when he was your patient; you don’t get to pretend to care now. Get out of our office and don’t come back. If I see you again, or if you attempt to call him again, I’ll arrest you for stalking. Have a nice day." She returned to the office.

The hospital offered Sam a hundred grand to not sue. According to Bobby, who spoke with him on the phone, he accepted on the condition that Dean "stop harassing me" and the hospital make the check out to a local organization that helped MOGAI youth. He was surprised by the offer, Bobby told him, but took the opportunity when it was presented.

Dean had to admit that he was puzzled. Why wouldn’t he just keep the money? But the ultimate result was the same. As far as the hospital was concerned the affair was over. Dean’s position was not so clear. He still needed to talk to Sam, try to clear this air between them, but he didn’t know how. "If I go to his office I’ll get arrested, Lisa," he told her one night after Ben went to bed. He’d decided to fill her in on what had happened, just in case. He didn’t want her to think he was trying to hide anything.

Lisa, as always, was sympathetic but pragmatic. "It’s for the best, Dean," she pointed out. "It’s not like you parted on good terms in the first place. Maybe it’s better to go your separate ways and just not have a brother named Sam anymore. I mean, you’ve spent thirteen years not having a brother named Sam; I’m pretty sure Adam’s forgotten he ever existed. Ben doesn’t even know he had an uncle Sam. Maybe just letting it lie is the way to go."

He sighed. "Part of me thinks you’re right," he admitted. "Part of me, though, just can’t. I mean, I took care of him, I changed his friggin’ diapers for crying out loud, and he hates me and I have no idea why."

"You mean besides the incest?" she pointed out.

"That was at least as much him as it was me," he shot back. "At least as much. And yeah, I do mean besides that. We’re still brothers, still — I don’t know. It’s kind of moot anyway, since we’re not exactly likely to run into each other in the supermarket or anything. It just bugs me that he hates me so much."

She sighed fondly. "Well, you did kind of shoot any kind of reunion in the foot when you freaked out about having treated him and sent Benny in. Nothing you can do about it now. Maybe someday."

"But probably not," he had to admit.

He went out and picked up a girl that night, just because he could and because he needed to prove something to himself.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Dean meet face-to-face ... and it doesn't go well. For Dean.

As fate had it, however, he was to be offered another chance to reconnect and it was the same Jody Mills who had threatened to arrest him for stalking that inadvertently brought the opportunity to his doorstep. A man accused of an act of terror in Texas had successfully petitioned to get his trial moved to Boston on the grounds that he was unable to get a fair trial in the state where the crime had taken place. Dean certainly couldn’t fault the decision. The guy had killed twenty people and injured sixty more with a homemade fertilizer bomb, no shit he wasn’t going to get a fair trial. Texans weren’t usually big on the whole "live and let live" thing either. They’d probably saved the federal government a billion dollars in security and policing just by moving the trial to Boston.

Of course, that didn’t mean that it wasn’t a circus up here, too. Protestors of all kinds ringed the courthouse and media from all over the world descended on Beantown, cluttering up the streets, falling down and making their way to the emergency rooms of the city. Dean followed the goings on with a little more interest now that he at least peripherally knew some of the players involved, although he never did see a giant in a sling wandering around in the news footage.

Of course all the security in the world can’t necessarily stop a determined individual with a grudge, and one evening about three weeks after Dean’s disastrous reunion with his brother he found himself watching in horror as a lone gunman opened fire on the crowd at the courthouse. The alleged terrorist went down. So did a good ten other people before the camera cut out and Dean’s phone alerted him to the initiation of a lockdown procedure.

Intellectually he knew that some of the victims would be brought to Boston General, but knowing it was different from living it. He was used to trauma, he was the top trauma surgeon in the state for crying out loud, but mass trauma like that was different from isolated incidents. It always threatened to remind him of the bad old days, of life with Dad. No matter how many fancy toys they had or how clean the OR was, at the end of the day it was still just blood and grime and gore and bones.

Hell, a day like today was probably the only day that Dad would be proud of him. Of course, that was contingent on him actually saving someone instead of sitting in his office and hoping that the door wouldn’t open into Afghanistan or Chiapas or Georgia or Oromo or whatever fresh Hell their father decided most needed their help.

He changed and scrubbed in. The hospital was being locked down – all ambulances being re-routed to other facilities, the main doors being locked. Patient surgeries were being rescheduled for other days, Dean had no idea when that would be but many would be put off into the next week if they could wait that long. Visitors were being evacuated. That was an unusual step and it meant that one of the patients being brought in – at least one – was going to be a Very Important Person related to the trial. Maybe they would be the suspect, the shooter. Maybe they would be the defendant. Maybe they would be a key witness, or a judge, or one of the jurors. Either way, the authorities were going the extra mile to make sure that security was as tight as it could be for these patients.

Dean couldn’t afford to think about that. He couldn’t afford to think about any of the whos or whys. He wasn’t going to be able to get away with letting malpractice insurance cut a check to a charity if he lost his objectivity here, nor should he.

The first patient brought to him had a gunshot wound to the upper left part of his abdomen. The bullet was still lodged in his gut, but Dean was able to get it out without much trouble. Repairing the damage left behind to the organs and soft tissue – that was going to take time and effort. Fortunately Dean had both time and skill to spare.

Four hours later he finished sewing up the first victim, went back into the scrub room. He changed and washed up for the next victim, who presented with a gunshot wound to the thigh. This one didn’t need as much work; the bullet had lodged in the femur and that was certainly going to cause the victim some problems in the long term, but it had also cauterized the wound to some extent which prevented the kind of bleeding-out that Dean would have expected from such an injury. He cleaned it out and inspected it, then called Ellen in for an ortho consult. They got some screws into the poor soul and got them casted up. They’d walk with a limp, but they’d walk again.

The procedure had taken another three hours; by this point Dean was certainly feeling the strain. Fortunately there were no more victims for him to treat. He caught a shower and went to go fill in some reports in his office; he liked to do those earlier rather than later while all of the details were fresh in his mind. When he stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel, though, he found Benny standing before him. "Dean, do you have a few minutes? I’d really like for you to come to my office and talk."

Dean closed his eyes and rolled his head back, trying to work out some kinks in the stiff muscles. "Benny, it’s been a really long day and a couple of really challenging surgeries. I love you, man, but can it wait?"

"Don’t think you’re going to get an opportunity like this again, brother." The Cajun shook his head, putting a hand on Dean’s bare shoulder. "I really think you should take the chance and come to my office. Now." He considered. "Well, maybe you should put some pants on first. They’ve got guns."

Understanding dawned. Somehow, Benny had gotten Sam to agree to a meeting. With him. "Shit. Yeah." He started toweling off as he raced for the locker with his things. "Um. Pants are key. Do I even want to know how you pulled this off?"

Benny politely looked away while Dean changed. "I just had a chat with him and that lovely lady velcroed to his side —"

Dean looked up. "You mean the bodyguard?"

"You hush. She’s a delicate English rose. She does have certain views on how her partner should be treated, but I figure you and she will get along like a house on fire if you really want what’s best for Sam."

Dean tugged his pants on. "If she’s his partner then why are you making heart eyes about her all of a sudden?"

"His work partner, dumbass. They catch bad guys together."

Dean drew an undershirt over his head. "So you think she’s got a thing for him?"

"What did I just tell you, Dean? Good Lord, you sound like the jealous ex."

He looked around the locker room. They seemed to be alone, but you could never be too careful. "I kind of am."

Benny frowned. "You’re jealous?"

"Well, no. I mean, not really. I mean, I don’t want Sam back. No, I mean that’s just wrong. I know that now. But it is a little — I don’t know, weird, thinking about him with someone else. I guess it would be for anyone I’d split with under bad circumstances. It’ll pass once I get used to seeing him again, you know?"

"Right. Perfectly normal." He almost thought Benny was laughing at him, but he could only see sweetness and light in his friend’s face.

Dean finished dressing as fast as he could and the pair raced toward the psychiatry department. He knew the way to Benny’s office like he knew the way to his own, so he didn’t need the shorter man to lead him anywhere. He threw open the door to Benny’s office and stopped short.

Sam was there. Right there, in the office, sprawled in one of the comfortable guest chairs. He was staring into space, his expression thoughtful. His hair touched the pale blue collar of his dress shirt, how the hell was that allowed in the FBI, but he looked good. He needed a shave, too. He looked at Dean with a wary look and all Dean wanted to do was to throw his arms around his baby brother and kiss that look right off his face.

But gentleness didn’t come easily to Dean. It never had, not since the day that their mother had died and his dad had shoved a baby Sammy in his arms. He simply didn’t know how to express himself softly, especially not where Sammy was concerned. And he noticed, once he tore his eyes away from soul-crushing hazel, was that Sam wasn’t wearing his brace.

"Where the fuck is your sling, man?" he demanded.

Sam’s whole face, his whole being transformed. He straightened up, went from rumpled younger sibling to professional FBI agent in less than a second. And that jaw of his, that eternal marker of the shifting moods that made up Sammy’s psyche, set. Benny, who had moved over to his own desk, covered his eyes with his hand and shook his head. Sable’s eyes narrowed and she straightened.

"That isn’t any of your concern, Dean." Sam said curtly. "And I think we’re done here." He moved to stand.

"Sammy, wait!" Dean objected, reaching out. "I’m sorry. I’m not good at — you know. I never was. But, I, uh. You should be wearing a sling for at least another week and nowhere near returning to duty. I mean, you were shot."

"It's Sam. And I’m fine."

"Look, I know things didn’t go well. Or right. But I mean, at least take care of yourself, man."

"Right. Good talk. I’ll see you around."

"Sam, stop. Can we just — it’s been thirteen years, man." Dean put his hand down; clearly no one wanted to grab it. "Can’t we just have a conversation like normal people?"

"Not really, no."

Dean blinked. "What?"

"Your friend there," Sam nodded at Lafitte. "Waylaid me into this because I didn’t want him causing a scene out in the emergency room. I figured this would be a good time to tell you to just back off."

"Wait a damn minute!"

"No. I’m not interested, Dean. Not in re-hashing the bad old days, not in re-connecting --"

"Wait, wait wait! Dammit, Sammy --"

"It’s Sam."

"We’re family!"

"We haven’t been family for a long time, Dean."

You’re the one who left." Dean shot back.

Sam nodded. "Yes, I did. I left because I was sick of being manipulated and controlled and abused by my so-called family. I left because I didn’t want to be a doctor, and I left to find my real father."

Dean blinked, his mouth opening and closing several times.

"Oh, so Winchester didn’t tell you about that." Sam exchanged a look with Sable. "Well, news flash, Dean. When you were maybe three, Winchester got suspended by the hospital he was working at so he went on a three-month-long drunk, drinking and screwing his way up and down the eastern coast. Mom packed you up and went to stay with an old friend. This lead to that and they had a brief affair —"

"Bullshit!" Dean was on his feet and heading fro Sam, his face red. That did it. No way was he going to let Sammy talk about their mother that way. He was going to beat him stupid. That had always been his way of solving disputes when they’d been younger, to take a swing and knock Sam around, put him in his place. Brothers being brothers, everyone said, and Sam had believed it. That was how boys, how men, solved their problems. 

He hadn’t seen the woman move but suddenly there was a hand on his throat and something cold pressed against his Adam’s apple. Benny was shouting something and Sam just sat there, face cold and completely unimpressed.

Benny was there, dragging him back and Dean found himself looking down the barrel of a gun. He froze, gawking.

"Easy, cherie —"

"I’m not your cherie." Sable said coldly, her eyes locked on Dean.

"Right, right. Sorry, Inspector." He dragged Dean back and shoved him back into the chair. "Stay," he hissed and looked behind him. "Everything’s cool. Everything’s fine."

"Define fine. Your asshole buddy there just tried to attack a Federal agent. I would been completely justified in shooting him." She holstered her gun and moved back to stand next to Sam. Her hand didn’t leave the butt of her gun. "Interesting, isn’t it, that finding out Winchester screwed his way up and down the eastern coast didn’t make him blink but the mere suggestion that his mother slept with another man makes him suicidal."

"That old-time Winchester double standard." Sam said. "I remember it well. As I was saying. They had a brief affair. Then Winchester decides he wants his wife back; convinces her to give their marriage another try. She agrees and you know the rest. Dad didn’t know about me until I managed to write him when I was sixteen."

"Wait a minute!" Dean barked. "You never got any letters."

"Notice how confident he is about that?" Sam said to Sable. "No, I didn’t. I told him not to write; that I’d find him when I was eighteen. I didn’t want him confronting Winchester."  
Sable, now leaning against the chair Sam sat in, snickered and Sam elbowed her with a smirk.

Dean seethed. He hating watching Sam palling around like that with anyone but him. It was as if they understood each other on a level that was once reserved for him and Sam. 

"Right. Like I believe that." Dean sneered. "What? You get yourself a fucking sugar daddy with a —"

Sam’s face went to stone and he stood. Dean scrambled to his feet with smirk. This was more like it. All he had to do was show Sam who was boss and he'd fall in line, like he always did. He straightened, intending on using his size and bulk to —

_When did Sam get so fucking tall?_

****************************************************

Sam stepped closer to Dean, using his height to look down at the other man coldly. He had expected this reaction and a part of him actually found it a bit funny. Dad would laugh his ass off.

"My father is Simon Pendragon, one hell of a fine man."

Dean licked his lips and Sam barely kept from smiling.

"And he just believed you when you showed up?" Dean challenged.

Now Sam did smile.

_England, Farrier Manor just outside the Village of Midsomer Nettles_

_He looked at the manor uncertainly. And it was a manor. A huge manor and he felt a tinge of doubt. Why would these people want him? For a moment he considered just leaving, going — somewhere but he’d come all this way. He stepped up to the door and knocked._

_The door opened and a middle-aged woman looked at him, at first inquiringly then with a look of surprise._

_"Huh, hi? I’m looking for —"_

_"You’re Sam, aren’t you?" She said with an air of wonder. "Simon’s boy."_

_Sam blinked. "I, ah —"_

_"You are." She turned. "Everyone! It’s Sam! It’s Simon’s boy, Sam!"_

_There were voices and then the sound of feet running and Sam found himself surrounded by people. Two sets of identical twins (who he later found out weren’t actually twins) about his age, an older woman, a woman even older then her, a few dozen more people coming from both the manor and the grounds. It was overwhelming and Sam, to his embarrassment, passed out._

"Oh yeah. They believed me." He smirked. "And later DNR tests confirmed it."

"Not that the family needed it." Sable prodded him and he rolled his eyes, holding his arm away from his body so she could put the sling she had retrieved from the chair back on. "But in order from Sam to get British citizenship it had to be confirmed that Simon was his father."

Sam shrugged at Dean’s look. "Hey, duel citizenship is useful. Handy for getting into British military."

"Military? What the hell — " Dean exploded.

"Something wrong with the military?" Sam grinned. "I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do so I joined up for a couple years. When I was ready I went to Cambridge for a couple years then transferred to Stanford here in the states. During my last year I was approached by several different agencies and finally settled on the FBI."

"You disappointed Aunt Miranda there. She was hoping you go into MI6." Sable gave the sling a final adjustment and struck a pose. "Pendragon. Samuel Pendragon." She intoned solemnly.

"Aunt Miranda?" Benny said slowly.

"Oh, yes." Sable smiled thinly. "Sam and I are cousins. Our grandmothers are sisters."

Dean snorted. "Seriously?"

"Seriously." Both Sam and Sable said then looked at each other and laughed.

Dean glared at them, his teeth grinding. "So you just left me — us on the off-chance that some complete stranger might take you in? Accepted that you’re his son? What if he didn’t want you?"

Sam sobered. "Yeah, Dean. I took a chance. It beat the alternative."

"What? You mean us being a family? What was so bad about that?"

Both Sam and Sable gawked at him.

"Is he serious?" Sable asked.

"Yeah, I think he is."

"Is he sane?"

Dean glared at her then apparently decided to ignore her, concentrating on Sam. Sam debated telling him that was a bad idea but figured he wouldn't believe him.

"What? Why not? It was a good life, Sammy!"

"No, Dean. No, it wasn’t. It was a miserable life and I hated it. So I left. And Winchester pitched a fit. Told me to never come back, that I was a useless, worthless piece of shit. Told me I was disowned. Which, by the way, was kind of funny but then he didn't know I knew about, you know, not actually being his son. Then he beat me up. Broke my wrist, a couple ribs, blackened my eyes. And, meanwhile, my 'loving, protective' older brother stood there like a big stupid lump and didn't do a damn thing. Didn't say anything. Didn't try to stop Winchester. Didn't even check to see if I survived to make it to the airport."

Dean shifted uncomfortably. "Dad said — "

Sam snorted. "You're thirty-five freaking years old, Dean and you're still doing what he says. Don't you think it's time for you to grow up? Hell, I'm surprised you actually decided to talk me. Did you remember to get Saint John Winchester's permission to do so?" he said mockingly.

"Dad's dead!" Dean spat out.

Sam blinked in surprise then shot a look at Sable. She looked as surprised as he felt. Arching an eyebrow at him, she shook her head slightly.

_Sam woke up to the sound of beeps and hums and a woman's low voice murmuring close by. He blinked his eyes open and looked around, confirming that he was in a hospital. A older woman, maybe in her sixties, was pacing around the room, speaking on a phone in a language he didn't know. Seeing he was awake, she murmured some final words and hung up._

_"Hello, Sam. Back with us, I see." She smiled and he smiled tentatively back. "I'm your grandmother."_

_Sam blinked. He had a grandmother?_

_"Your father is on his way here."_

_Sam couldn't help it. He tensed before reminding himself that John Winchester wasn't his father and she couldn't mean him._

_"He is?" Sam asked, uncertain of what else to say._

_"Oh yes. He's been looking for you. It looks like he was perhaps three days behind you."_

_"He was?" Sam thought about the last eighteen months and realized that they had been on the move more then they normally had._

_"He left the day after he received your letter."_

_Sam opened his mouth then closed it again, not sure what to ask. His mind was whirling with confusion and uncertainty._

_"You're in our local hospital. They had to reset your wrist." She moved to sit in the chair next to the bed. "I suspect meeting the family was a bit overwhelming."_

_Sam blinked, remembering all the people who had surrounded him. "All of those people are family?" He asked weakly._

_"In varying degrees, yes." She smiled slightly, obviously amused at his reaction. "You'll meet them more formally later."_

_"You were there." He remembered her standing in the doorway._

_"And your great-grandmother as well." She said. "Who is having a delightful time working out various ways to kill Winchester without leaving any evidence."_

_Sam blinked again. Despite the smile, she didn't look like she was joking._

_"Errrr, I'd rather she didn't." He said weakly._

_The woman — his grandmother — arched an eyebrow. "Are you sure? I doubt it would be any trouble. I'm sure she has plenty of offers to help."_

_Sam was beginning to feel like he'd fallen into the twilight zone. It felt strangely good; the thought that someone cared enough to kill Winchester for him. "I'd still rather you didn't. I mean, that would make his death my fault. And Dean, too," he added hastily, just in case there were plans for him as well._

_His grandmother sighed and stood. "Well, there is that." She pulled out her phone as she walked toward the door. "You rest. I'll just popped outside and give her a call." She paused, looking back. "Now you are certain? It really is no trouble at all."_

_"Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure."_

_"Oh, very well. She'll be so disappointed." The door closed on that last sentence_

_Sam couldn't help it; he began to giggle._

“I’m sorry for your loss.” Sam said, the words spilling out on autopilot from the typical FBI script. “I know how close you were.” 

Dean’s eyes bulged. “Damn it, Sam, he was our father! ‘Sorry for your loss,’ like I’m some kind of patient.”

"He wasn't my father." Sam reminded him.

Lafitte cleared his throat. “Dean, I don’t think it’s exactly carrying tales out of school to say that your father and Sam didn’t enjoy the same kind of relationship that you enjoyed with him. Plus, your father disowned him more than a decade ago.” 

Right, Lafitte was a psychiatrist. “You’d think that he’d be more affected!" Dean shot back. "I mean, it’s not like he can make it up to the guy now.”

"Make it up?" Sam said out loud. Next to him, Sable mouthed the same words, a look of disbelief on her face. "I don't have anything to make up for. Not to Winchester. Not to you."

Dean blinked. "You —"

"I what, Dean? I left a dysfunctional, abusive, toxic family? I refused to attend the college Winchester got me into? I refused to take the classes he picked out? I refused to let him — and you — continue to control my life? Tell me, Dean? What did I do that I need to make up to anyone?"

"You left me!"

Sam smiled grimly. So that was it. "Yes, Dean, I did. And it was the best move I'd ever made in my life. Kicking you and Winchester out of it enabled me to move on. Of course," he glanced at Sable. "Family helped."

"I'm your family!" Dean bellowed and Sam's eyes narrowed.

"No, you're not. You haven't been for years, even before you and Winchester disowned me, kicked me out. Told me I didn't have a father — big laugh — didn't have a brother. Never to come back. I was dead to you." He held up a hand to stop Dean from speaking. "I know what you're about to say. That that was all Winchester. He kicked me out, yadda yadda yadda. That's bullshit and you know it. You didn't do a thing to stop him or even pretend to disagree. You never tried to find me or contact me in any way."

"It wasn't on me to contact you." Dean snapped and Lafitte groaned, covering his eyes with a hand. "I wasn't the one who left!"

"Right. I left. I didn't contact you because I didn't want to have anything to do with you. I still don't want to have anything to do with you. If you keep harassing me, I will have to take legal action."

Dean scoffed. "Yeah, right."

"It's a big city." Sam glanced at Sable, momentarily distracted by her pulling her phone from her pocket. "There's no reason for us to run into each other and if we do, well. Just stay away from me. Nod politely if you want but there's no reason for you to bug me. What?" He leaned over to read the message on Sable's phone. "Oh, for — why's he sending it to you? Tell him it's to the west of the Wayshrine of Resolution."

"How do you remember these things?" Sable typed back a text.

"I play it too damn much." There was a chirping from one of his pockets and he pulled out his phone, scanning the screen. "And we have to go pick Aunt Hettie up from the airport. Her plane lands in eighty minutes so if you don't mind," he looked at Dean. "get out of the way."

Dean looked ready to argue but Lafitte stood up hurriedly and yanked Dean to one side. Swinging the door up, Sam let Sable pass through before following.

****************************************************

"What'd you do that for?" Dean yanked his arm from Benny's grasp. "We weren't done yet!"

"Dean! He wanted to leave; you didn't have the right to stop him." Benny didn't look happy.

Dean began to pace. "You heard that bullshit he was saying. About our Mom? No way she had an affair! He got himself some fantasy family, some big messed up delusion."

"Why?" Benny said reasonably.

"Hell if I know. Didn't like the family he had, his real family so he finds another. Typical Sammy." Dean wanted to hit something.

"If so then a lot of people are in on it. Including the FBI." Benny said dryly and Dean glared at him. "Maybe you should —" There was a knock at the door and Benny walked over to open it. A nurse stood outside, a fax in hand.

"The gentleman who just left asked me to bring this in when it arrived." She handed it to Benny, who thanked her as he closed the door. 

Benny glanced at the paper and shook his head. "This settles that." He handed to Dean. "The results of a DNR test, proving conclusively that Sam Pendragon, formerly Sam Winchester, is the biological son of one Simon Pendragon."

Dean scanned the paper with a scowl. "It's fake. Has to be."

"Give it up, Dean." Benny sank into his chair.

"I thought you were all about getting families back together."

Benny eyed him for a moment. "You didn't mention your dad beat him up," he said finally.

"What?" Dean blinked.

"When he left." Benny elaborated,

"Oh. That." Dean shrugged dismissively. "Yeah, Dad smacked him a couple times. Tried to knock some sense into him." He saw the look on Benny's face and got defensive. "Hey! He was leaving! He deserved it. Wasn't anything major."

Benny blinked. "Broken wrist, broken ribs —"

"He wasn't hurt that bad! Jez, Dad wasn't a monster. That's just Sammy, making everything out to be worse than it really was. He always was a little prima donna."

"Was he bleeding when he left?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "Yeah, sure. A little. But he walked away on his own! If he was hurt that bad then all he had to do was turn around and come back. I could have fixed him up and he knew it."

"Unless he thought coming back was worse than leaving."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. Leave it, Dean. Let him go. Keep pushing him and eventually he'll sue."

"He's not going to sue."

"Right. Like he wasn't going to sue the hospital?"

Dean scowled as he crumbled up the fax and threw it in the trash can. "This is seriously fucked up. Why the hell couldn't he —"

"He what?"

Dean squirmed. "I don't know. Just —" Dean got a mental image of Sam on his knees, doing things to him that he still dreamt off. Only now he was all grown up and —. Dean forcibly banished that image. "Just be family again. Be my brother."

Benny spread his hands and shrugged. "There's a lot of bad history there, bro. Seriously. And maybe he feels like he doesn't need you. Sounds like he's got a family. Dad, cousin, grandmother, Aunt Hettie."

Dean felt anger so hot he saw red. "I was his family first!"

"Yeah, and look how well that turned out." Benny said pointedly then shook his head. "I'd hoped that getting you guys in a room together would get you two talking but I think I blew it. He obviously sees it as forcing him to meet with you." He grimaced. "Taking his choice away. Something that I guess happened a lot when he was a kid. No wonder he was so hostile."

"So if we'd meet at a bar or something it might have gone better?"

"Maybe. Maybe let him make the first move."

Dean snorted. "If I did that —" He cut himself off abruptly but the thought continued. 

_— I'd never had gotten him on his knees for me._

"No," he finally said. "I gotta make the first move."

"Dean, you gotta leave it alone. Honestly, I'm thinking the harder you push, the more Sam's gonna fight it."

"No no. This is typical Sammy. Always running away, always wanting me to chase him."

"You're talking about your brother, Dean. Not your lover."

That stopped Dean in his tracks. "Yeah. Yeah, maybe you're right. Maybe I should just — give it up."

Benny stood up, slapping Dean on the back. "Who knows? Leave him alone and maybe he'll be contacting you, once he thinks it through."

"Yeah, sure." Dean didn't believe it for a moment.

****************************************************

Sam and Sable walked toward the car, Sable swinging the keys from a finger. Sam was disturbingly somber and, as they neared the car, she stepped sideways, bumping her hip against his. "I knew I should hidden that horse better," she murmured.

They both started laughing.

_The hums and beeps of the machines were strangely soothing and Sam found himself drifting. He became aware of the door easing open and looked over to see a girl his age, one of the twins he'd seen earlier, peering in. She grinned at him and looked behind her before darting in. The next thing he knew she was perched on the foot of his bed, lowering the backpack she wore to the floor._

_"Hi, I'm your cousin Sable," she said brightly. "Our grandmothers are sisters."_

_Sam blinked. While her eyes were grey and her hair so light it looked white, her skin was dark._

_She saw his look and guessed accurately at what he was thinking. "There's African in the family some generations back."_

_"Oh," he said weakly then frowned. "Sable?"_

_She grimaced. "Okay, it's Stephanie. But I hate that name so — Sable."_

_"Sable's cool."_

_She grinned, reaching down to open the backpack. "Thought you might be hungry. Got some stuff from the kitchen before I came. Pull that table over, will you?"_

_Bemused, Sam obeyed and Sable started setting containers on the table._

_"They should still be hot. I rode Monarch down and he runs like the wind. There's steak and kidney pie. Cottage pie — that one's vegetarian. Aunt Hettie's experimenting with vegetarian dishes. And some tarts. There's a —" she peered at one. "This is a Blackwell tart, I think. And a custard tart, and I'm pretty sure this one's a gypsy tart. And some snacks." She piled the latter on the side table. "The food here isn't that bad but it never hurts to have snacks." She dropped some plastic utensils next to the food._

_Sam eyed the food dubiously. He was hungry but memories kept him from reaching for a dish._

_**Fat, lazy, useless … Hey little bro! Time for that finicky eaters diet!** _

_He swallowed hard, feeling sick._

_"Hey, you okay?" There was real concern in Sable's voice. When he looked at her she looked troubled. "Aunt Miranda said something about you being really underweight so I thought —" She looked over the food._

_"She did?"_

_"Yeah. Something like twenty pounds. And malnourished to boot."_

_Sam blinked, remembering the villagers who would always try to feed him — Boy's too skinny; doesn't the American doctor feed him? — but Winchester had always insisted he was too fat. "Who said? The doctor?" he finally asked and Sable nodded._

_After a moment, Sam reached for a fork. "Never had cottage pie before." Sable grinned and nudged the container over to him, grabbing the steak and kidney pie for herself._

_"Do you like reading? I bought some books." She dug them out, dropping them on the bed. "This is the first book of a fantasy series, really good. And here, this is one of the best of a mystery series set in the 1940s. And these —"_

_There was the sound of a throat being cleared from the doorway and both of them started guiltily, looking that way. A nurse stood there, a bemused look on her face. "Shall I have a cot brought in?" she asked._

_Sam meet Sable's eyes and hesitated. After a moment, he nodded. "Sure. Why not?" Sable grinned._

_"I assume you bought something to sleep in." The nurse said. "I'll call one of your brothers to come get Monarch." She closed the door and both Sam and Sable burst into giggles._

_"I knew I should have hidden that horse better." Sable finally said._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so it … ends? Or does it? That's up to you, the readers and Safiyabat (I'm getting real good at spelling her name without having to look. Go me!) If people are interested and Safiyabat doesn't object, I will continue. Otherwise this story could be considered complete. You can assume Dean does leave Sam alone and they live their own lives, if you like.
> 
> But is Dean really capable of leaving Sam alone? His behavior in the original story bordered on obsessive and he had people supporting his behavior. Granted, they probably didn't know the truth and totally believed Dean's version of events. They saw both Dean and Sam as victims of John's actions without realizing (or discounting) that Sam was a victim of Dean's actions as well. Instead they seem to be putting as much, if not more, blame on Sam than they are on Dean. Which really makes me wonder what Dean actually told them.
> 
> As you may notice, this story is going in a much different direction than the normal Sam-leaves-the-family story. I've always wanted to write a story where Sam leaves the Winchesters and steps into a massively supportive protective environment that would give him the help and self-esteem boost he so desperately needs. I want a Sam who is secure in himself with people to support him. And this, as you may have noticed, is a very unusual family. To give hm that boost, I decided that, in this story, John Winchester isn't his real father. Other things factor into the changes in Sam's life that help him as well. 
> 
> I've dropped several very vague hints to various things in the story, such as who Sam's father is, who his grandmother is, and some hints as to where the story might go. Some people may understand them but most probably won't. If I continue this story all of that will be revealed. I should warn all readers that my stories are not everyone's cup of tea. They can get kind of ... strange. 
> 
> Kudos to anyone who can figure out where the Wayshrine of Resolution comes from and what is to the west of it.


	5. Just a note

Another update: I'm looking for a beta reader ... anyone interested?

UPDATE: So I heard from Safiyabat and it's a go! (Otherwise known as now I actually have to write the damn thing.) Once I finish the next part I will replace this chapter with it and adjust the date, which I hope will send out update notifications.

For me this story has so many possibilities and you will probably hear me bitch about the problems I'm having deciding which to use. I can tell you its not going to get better for Dean, not for some time, if ever. There will be a number of new characters (What can I say? Sam has a HUGE family.), including Lisa's father and younger brother and I plan on using the girlfriend (I assume girlfriend) of Adam's Safiyabat introduced. Characters from other media may appear, possibilities include Leverage (it is Boston, after all), NCIS, and The Closer. Sections of the original story will still be appearing but what appears from now in will mostly be mine.

After much dithering, I added a bit to the conversation between Benny and Dean toward the end of the last chapter. Nothing big, just something I missed.

Thank you, everyone, for the kudos!

Glossary

Dia dhuit ar maidin - Good morning

Col seisir ionúin - beloved second cousin (Irish Gaelic) 

Frakking - fucking (Colonial, Battlestar Galactica)

Póg mo thóin - kiss my ass

Cac ar oineach - Scumbag (shit on honor)

Cúl Tóna - dickhead

Chapter 3

chérie - darling


	6. Maybe the end

You're probably wondering what happened to this story and why it's been marked as complete. What happened is that I sort of wrote myself into a corner. I'd reach a certain point and find myself staring at the screen, wondering why I just hadn't let Sam's great-grandmother kill Dean when I had the chance. That and I found that what I wanted to do just was not working with this set up. So I decided to wrap this version up, rename it slightly and re-write it differently. I'll still be using a lot of what was already written, which I will explain better when I start posting the new version. The only down side of the new version is that if you have read this one (which I'm assuming you have) you already know one of the big reveals. Well, one of the big reveals.I may revive this version in the future (because I ad some outstanding scenes planned) but I think I need someone to help me out with not turning Dean into a complete asshat.

Chapter 4 has been augmented with a glossary.

The new version will have the same name (Not a Chance) and the series has been renamed The Other Lives of Sam Winchester. I have a number of ideas concerning Sam living a different life and hope to post them here.


End file.
